Reading Together 2012 Blog

Universal One-liners

One of the things that amazes me about Into the Beautiful North, that I really only paid a lot of attention to on my third reading of the book, is the wonderful, philosophical one-liners that are sprinkled throughout the book. They’re so easy to miss, so I thought I would note a few of them here, just in case others missed them. The page number that follows is the page number in the paperback version of the book.

Here they come:

Mostly they did what Mexicans in every small town in Mexico did: they circled their own history (15).

(Of Yolo’s brother, Tlacloc) he changed the name to Lalo before he went north with his father to become nameless (20).

(On immigration into Mexico) “Go back where you came from!” Irma bellowed, “Mexico is for Mexicans” (36).

“The Americans are kind. Friendly people. Generous people. They have quaint customs—they aren’t really, shall we say, sophisticated like we are. You can’t drink the water—it will give you diarrhea” (62)

(The tweakers) never made it all the way to the top, so they never saw the view (from the garbage heap (124).

What made them different from her? She could not tell (155).

Nayeli wanted what they (Americans) had, but she did not know what that was (169).

(Nayeli) could not comprehend where she’d been, what she’d seen, who she’d met, or what she’d lost (259).

“This is Kankakee, morra! They like Mexicans here (317).

“Our town has seen some hard times. But it’s a wonderful place. We’re bringing it back.” (Of Kankakee, 321).

There are many more, but these particularly struck me because of the universality of them all. The last two, in particular, I hope people can say more readily about Kalamazoo following our Reading Together experience this year.

Another thing I found in the “joining unlike groups of people together” is the mention that Arnold Davis, border patrol, wants to escape, as does Matt, the former missionary. We are all so much more alike than different! If you talk with someone not like you who has read the book, you’ll probably discover the same thing—we’re all so much alike and our differences are very interesting.

Into the Beautiful North

Add a Comment

* = required

Name *

Email *

Website

Comment

Note: Help maintain a healthy, respectful discussion by focusing commentson the issues, topics, and facts of the post and not at other users of the site.Read our Social Networking Policy for KPL Patrons.